Page 11 of Nothing Without You

I put my hand on Chyna’s thigh. It was nothing I had ever done before, but now that I thought about it, we hadn’t ridden in the same car before. We were either at work, or I tasked myself with dropping Liam off to her. She’d never even been to my house before. Liam had for a few hours, here and there, but this was all so new for us. Still, my hand on her thigh felt so comfortable and like an automatic response. “Is this okay?”

I mean, she thought I was cute and all, . . . so I wasn’t completely out of the realm of possibilities, was I?

“Y-yes,” Chyna replied.

She sounded nervous but not like she didn’t want me to touch her.

I squeezed her thigh and asked, “You gonna answer my question?”

“What question?”

“About that ni—man messin’ wit’ you,” I reminded her.

“Oh, that. I mean, he wasn’t messing with me, really. He was just being a dick.”

“Same thing.” I shrugged.

“Okay, but you didn’t have to . . .” She glanced back at the boys. “Do what you did.”

“Maybe not, but I bet he won’t mess wit’ you again.”

“Yeah, because I don’t have nowhere to live,” she said. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw her rub her temples once again.

“Says who? You ain’t hear what I said? He ain’t got a choice but to let you live there, rent free, until you find somewhere else. I’ll help you look.”

She shook her head. “There’s no way he’ll agree to that on paper. Who’s to say he won’t call the police on you?”

I chuckled. She really didn’t know me like that. Not only did Jerome pluck me from the streets at the ripe age of eighteen, but he also got me into one of those prestigious all Black schools. I was friends with lawyers, judges, police chiefs, and more. She had nothing to worry about.

“By tomorrow, I’ll have an amended lease for you, along with an addendum about the broken pipe. All documents will have your landlord’s signature. I did what I had to do to make sure you were good. I don’t regret that.”

It was silent for a moment before she finally whispered, “Thank you.”

I squeezed her thigh once again, and we fell into a comfortable silence. The rest of the ride was pretty quiet, aside from Liam and KJ bickering over the phone.

When we pulled up to my home, Chyna spoke once again.

“This is where you live?”

My smile grew. For some reason, her being impressed by me meant a lot. I never really cared about my status or the things I had just to show off to other people. If I wanted something, I would get it for my own pleasure, and it was as simple as that. But Chyna stirred up a whole new beast for me. I wanted her to love my home and all the things I could offer. It had been a long couple of years of respecting the boundaries Chyna put up, but that facade got harder with every day that passed. Even the intimidation I felt with her seemed to diminish day by day. I would be a fool to allow that to be the reason I didn’t make a move on her.

“Yeah, this is my home,” I replied as I pulled into the four-car garage and cut the engine.

“Did you build this home?”

“Yeah. Spent close to a year perfecting the blueprints.”

She unbuckled her seat belt. “Why do you have a four-car garage if you only have two cars?”

I glanced at the matte-black car sitting next to us.

For you. That was what I wanted to say, but instead, I said, “In case I ever get more cars.”

“It for my car, Doll,” KJ said.

She giggled as she got out of the car and opened Liam’s door. Both of them were practically bouncing out of their car seats.

“Hold still,” I said as I tried to unbuckle KJ. When he was finally free, he bounced out of the car and toward the door, with Liam right behind him. I grabbed Chyna’s and Liam’s bags and gestured my hand forward. “After you.”